War of the Worlds ---- ** (out of 5) (2005)
Cast: Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Miranda Otto, Justin Chatwin, Tim Robbins
Director(s): Steven Spielberg
Screenwriter(s): Josh Friedman, David Koepp
Released on: June 29, 2005
Reviewed on: July 30, 2005
Rated: PG-13 - for frightening scenes of sci-fi violence and disturbing images
If there was one engaging film idea that struck my curiosity for a summer blockbuster, it was a novel-to-celluloid adaptation of H.G. Wells's science fiction classic, War of the Worlds. I wasn't sure exactly what Spielberg's approach was going to be, because with this kind of "alien invasion" material, you can either go the smart, intelligent route or the Michael Bay route. I was praying for the former, but what I got was much more of the latter than I had bargained for. Take it easy on the pyrotechnics, man!
If you're familiar with at least some form of timeless, landmark literature, you should have a general idea of the plot for WAR OF THE WORLDS. Though many details have been changed from the book to modernize things, it's basically this. Raymond Ferrier is a struggling middle-class white man who has just gone through a divorce with his wife. When his teenage son, Robbie, and younger daughter, Rachel, come to visit him, it's obvious that they don't have a very good emotional connection with one another. However, not much time can be spent fixing the relationship problems, because strange lightning storms have been striking places all over the world. One day, the inevitable happens. Supreme alien conquistadors decide to overrun the planet by awakening large 100-foot-tall robotic mechanisms buried beneath the earth's crust and using them to obliterate human beings. Ray takes his two children with him on a quest to find their mother and, especially, shelter from the destruction happening all around them. But, they begin to discover that finding safety may not be the easiest task.
Though I would by no means consider myself a seasoned critic such as the likes of Ebert or Berardinelli, it's movies like this that sometimes make me cinematically weary. I've developed increasing paranoia that the world of film is close to going full-circle. After roughly eighty years of movies, how long would you expect it to take for all of the bases to be covered? I suppose that, once all of the innovative and competely original scripts have been written, the new goal for future filmmakers will be to remake old ideas with fresher concepts and stylish execution. And that's exactly what WAR OF THE WORLDS tries to accomplish. I'm not saying I totally disliked the film. I just dislike the fact that, despite doing their best, Friedman and Koepp couldn't manage to make the final product seem like something we've never experienced before. It's all very by-the-numbers scenes drenched in predictability that is sometimes unforgivable. Sure, it's necessary to stay true to H.G. Wells's 1898 novel, but a red herring here or there would have been nice. I guess if I wanted some mind-twisting, plot-related zingers, I should have paid to see something other than WAR OF THE WORLDS.
So, admist an environment where chaos and pandemonium lingers heavily in the air, what characters do we have to relate to? Well, there's Tom Cruise, who is almost always effective in the type of role that requires him to play the average Joe that becomes the reluctant hero. Other than that, there's not a lot of acting power to hold things up, so it lies on Cruise's shoulders to carry the film. Justin Chatwin's teenage rebellion attitude was mostly meaningless and contrived, and Dakota Fanning's whining and shrieking was nauseating, to say the least. The only person I immensely enjoyed watching was Tim Robbins, who didn't show up until approximately the third act. His deranged and eccentric performance was perfect to breathe some life into the film during its plodding final half-hour.
WAR OF THE WORLDS is to popcorn entertainment, as a restaurant is to cigarette smoke. Its presence is everywhere. High quantities of R-rated-esque violence sometimes shocked me, for a viewer with PG-13 expectations. There's humans getting torched and disintegrated by laser beams, humans getting their blood drained by alien tubes, and all sorts of creepy and borderline-depraved ideas that are sure to offend a portion of the audience. I was disappointed mostly by its tendency to follow formula as the story unfurled. Doomed to be compared to the likes of INDEPENDENCE DAY, WAR OF THE WORLDS is home video material meant for a Saturday night.
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